Hull inspection platform

ABSTRACT

An articulated boom suspended from a catamaran-like vessel carries an observation compartment. Controls articulate the boom to place the compartment at a desired location, for example, to allow a close inspection of the bottom of a ship&#39;&#39;s hull. Life support conduits connect the compartment to the surface and safety equipment is included to permit an emergency exit should there be system failure.

United States Patent [191 McKinley et a1.

[ HULL INSPECTION PLATFORM [75] Inventors: Larry E. McKinley, Escondido;

Clarence S. Johnson, San Diego; Justin E. Langille, ll], Coronado, all of Calif.

[73] Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC.

22 Filed: Dec. 30, 1971 211 App]. No.: 214,325

[52] US. Cl l14/0.5, 114/16, 61/69 R,

212/3 [51] Int. Cl B63g 8/00 [58] Field of Search"; 114/05, 16, 16.4,

[5 6] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,963,996 6/1934 I Lake 61/69 1 June 26, 1973 1,356,773 10/1920 Lake 61/69 3,105,453 10/1963 Hayes 114/144 3,360,076 12/1967 Stilwell 182/2 3,461,989 8/1969 Prescott 182/2 1 3,210,103 10/1965 Montgomery et a1. 212/70 Primary Examiner-Milton Buchler r i rqn inerr i e nse A ttor ney Richard S Sciascia, Ervin F Johnston et a1.

[ 5 7 ABSTRACT An articulated boom suspended from a catamaran-like vessel carries an observation compartment. Controls articulate the boom to place the compartment at a desired location, for example, to allow a close inspection of the bottom of a ships hull. Life support conduits connect the compartment to the surface and safety equipment is included to permit an emergency exit should there be system failure.

5 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures HULL INSPECTION PLATFORM STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT INTEREST The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the Government of the United States of America for governmental purposes without the payment of any royalties thereon or therefor.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Underwater inspections are usually performed by divers beneath ships hulls, along jetties, or wherever inspections are called for. Afterward, the diver reports to maintenance personnel who act accordingly. Unfortunately, qualified divers do not always have the expertise required to make accurate or meaningful observations. A ships hull having an unobviousirregularity might be overlooked by an untrained diver and its presence omitted from his report. An engineering officer capable of correlating this hull defect to the ship's operation will not be so advised and will not take the corrective measures he would have taken hadhe made the observations himself. Also, the most qualified marine scientists are prevented from making first hand observations due to physical limitations or for lack of diver qualification. Again, untrained observers may have to be relied upon for data gathering. One alternative is to place the qualified observer in a protective habitat isolated from the surroundings to facilitate his making percipient observations. An early device of this type is disclosed in the U. S. Pat. No. 1,356,773 issued to Simon Lake in Oct. 26, 1920. His vessel crawls along the bottom of a body of water and a crew makes scientific observations. A limitation of this design is its inability to make close upward observations, for example, of a ships keel due to its apparent bulk and single rigid supporting tube. Another approach is shown in U. S. Pat. No. 3,105,453 issued to W. J. Hayes on Oct. 1, 1963. He uses a remote robot carried on a crawler-like arrangement functioning as a data gathering vehicle. The vehicle is obviously complicated and its operational cost is not justified where a simple routine inspection is all that is needed. Closed circuit TV inspections relying on a submerged robot vessel or held by a diver generally are impractical since large and close area scanning along with intensive close up inspection of small areas necessarily involve an expensive complicated bank of scanner and monitoring equipment along with a sophisticated interface and communications network. There is a continuing need for an inexpensive underwater observation platform allowing close-up inspection of hard-to-reach areas while affording a high degree of safety.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A system for deploying and permitting a submerged visual observation includes a stable supporting vessel mounting an articulated arm reaching below and away from the vessel. Control signals originating in a watertight observation platform carried at its opposite end selectively place trained scientific observers to allow their making first-hand, close-up observations of phenomena with no exposure to the elements and little exposure to danger. Should the platform become immobi' lized beneath the water's surface, suitable escape gear and procedures are incorporated in the system to allow a crews safe ascent to the surface.

It is a prime object of the invention to provide an un- 4 derwater observation platform.

Another object of the invention is to provide a watertight platform for allowing first hand scientific observations by nondivers.

Yet another object is to provide an observation platform mounted on a responsively controlled articulated boom allowing upward observations.

Still another object is to provide an underwater observation platform supported by a vessel configured for increasing stability.

A further object is to provide an underwater observation platform including safety equipment for allowing emergency escape.

These and other objects of the invention will become more readily apparent from the drawings when taken with the ensuing specification.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is an isometric view of the invention operationally deployed.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawings, a vessel 10 having the general hull configuration of a catamaran serves as a supporting structure for an articulated boom 15. Consistent with conventional design, the vessel has a propeller, not shown, carried on the aftmost portion of each hull. The props are variable pitched or are capable of bidirectional rotation to lend a high degree of maneuverability. It has been found advantageous to provide an auxiliary unit 11, an outboard motor, for hydrodynamically cooperating with the hull mounted propulsors to futher increase the vessels maneuverability, for the reasons disclosed infra.

A departure from the conventional catamaran design appears in the inclusion of a boom slot 12 cut through the vessel's deck and through which the articulated boom depends.

The boom chosen for the present application is journaled at its inboard end in a joint 13. The joint employs a pin 14 secured at the vessel side and journaled on the boom side to allow the boom's rotating a few degrees in either direction as indicated by the bidirectional arrow on the joint. This degree of free rotation relieves destructive strains from developing across the pins in the booms joints as the vessel rolls in response to surface wave action.

The boom consists of a pair of arms 16 and 17 pivotally joined to one another through a pin 18. A hydraulic ram mechanism 19 is respectively controlled from either end of the boom through suitable control lines and linkage to selectively extend the boom from its retracted position shown in FIG. 2, to a position roughly corresponding to that depicted in FIG. 1. The hydraulic system, supply and return lines and control system are well within the current state of the art and they have purposefully been omitted from the specification and the drawings to avoid belaboring the obvious.

On the outwardmost extension of arm 17, bore 20 pivotally supports a watertight compartment 22 through a mating mounting shaft 23. The shaft is located at a point between the compartments center of buoyancy and center of mass tending to maintain the compartment in an upright position in or out of the water. Optionally, a pair of parallel bars 170 and 17b reach between the pivot joint area at pin 18 and the outer wall of the compartment to maintain the watertight compartment in a predetermined attitude. The use of parallel bars or cables to accomplish such an attitude control is widespread and elaboration is unnecessary.

The booms mechanical construction, its mounting, its actuation and control are more completely understood by noting that a commercially available articulated boom has been used with highly satisfactory results in the instant application. The A B Chance Company, Pittman Manufacturing Company Division of Grandview, Missouri commercially markets an articulated aerial device under the trademark M HOT- STIK. This particular device has been used to articulate the watertight compartment in adesired location with little modifications other than substituting corrosion resistant or noncorrosive materials. For example, at pivot pin 18, a stainless pin was substituted instead of the conventional steel pin and exposed surfaces were adequately coated with corrosion inhibiting paints or resin compounds. The M 0 HOTSTIK device is hydraulically controlled from either end and is capable of being responsively extended to permit close-hand observation from the watertight compartment.

Looking to the compartment itself, a tubular housing 24 is provided with a pair of ports 25 each of which is closed by a sealed convex transparent window 26. A slightly offset section 27 depends from the tubular housing to provide a space for receiving the observers legs and feet and seat cushions and pads are provided for comfort.

At the watertight compartments opposite end a conventional scuttle 28 provides an entry way to the compartment and is opened and sealed shut from the outside or inside via an external or internal wheel. Fittings 22a reach through suitable glands in the compartments wall and life support lines 29 carrying air to and from the compartment and leads 30 providing power for the externally carried lamps and communications with the surface pass through'the fittings.

A high degree of safety is provided for by including within the compartment itself a source of pressurized gas, usually no more than a bottle of compressed air 31,

attached to a conventionalscuba regulator 31a. Should an emergency arise or the observers be trapped below the surface of the water, the air return line of the life support lines reaching to the surface is plugged and compressed gas is vented from the tank to the compartments interior. After the ambient pressure has been slightly overcome, the scuttle is easily unscrewed by the observer and he exits from the compartment through the opened scuttle to the surface.

Because water rushes to the interior as the scuttle is opened, an alternative method of leaving the compartment is preferred. The compartment is flooded gradually via valve 32 while the observer breathes gas from the air tank. After the compartment has been nearly completely flooded, the scuttle is released and the observer escapes to the surface.

An alternative configuration for the watertight compartment is shown in FIGS. 4a and 4b depicting several windows 26a disposed in a 360 relationship about the observation compartment. Essentially, the structure is the same as that shown in FIGS. 3a and 3b except for the all around windows.

The advantages and capabilities of the invention are immediately made known during a routine hull inspection. Vessel 10 is brought alongside a ship and a damage or maintenance inspector enters the watertight compartment through scuttle 28. After closing and sealing the scuttle in place, the hydraulic ram imparts a rotational motion of the outward arm 17 about pivot 18. A similarly controlled pivotal motion about a boom pin 15a is initiated by an appropriately interconnected hydraulic ram, not shown for sake of simplicity.

The vessel being adjacent the ships hull, see FIG. 1, thusly places a trained observer in the near proximity of the underside of the hull with a minimal danger exposure. Arm 16 mainly functions to place the compart ment beneath the waters surface while arm 17 places the compartment laterally away from vessel 10. Thusly, by the combined coaction of the two arms the observer is placed beneath the most remotely located areas of a ships hull or beneath docks or floating platforms to begin a close inspection. By selectively driving the propellers on each of the vessels hulls and the propeller of auxiliary power unit 11, a precisely controlled longitudinal or lateral scan of the ships keel area is performed. Signals for close-up adjustments are fed from the observer through the control lines to the surface hydraulic actuators and arms 16 and 17 are responsively displaced.

Should there be hydraulic failure or should resurfacing of the compartment become impossible, the observer floods the compartment via flooding valve 32 and starts breathing from the source of gas 31 as the level of flooded water slowly fills the compartment. Once filled, scuttle 28 is opened and the observer exits and resurfaces unimpeded.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 4 has been found to be more suitable than the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 for marine biologists needing a greater observation capability. Other than this factor, the two embodiments are identical.

Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present invention are possible in the light of the above teachings, and, it is therefore understood that within the scope of the disclosed inventive concept, the invention may be practiced otherwise than specifically described.

What is claimed is:

1. In a system for deploying and permitting a submerged visual observation from a catamaran-like supporting vessel an improvement therefor is provided comprising:

, a watertight body member sized for containing an observer having at least one viewing port and means for remotely displacing said watertight body member from said catamaran-like supporting vessel including a first and a second rigid arm pivotally joined together, said first arm is pivotally connected to said watertight body member between its center of buoyancy and its center of mass to maintain said watertight body member in an upright position in and out of the water and said second arm is journaled on said catamaran-like vessel to prevent the development of destructive strains as said catamaran-like supporting vessel rolls in response to surface wave action.

2. A system according to claim 1 in which said watertight body member is provided with a plurality of view- 5 ing ports circumfrentially disposed for allowing a 360 said observation in comfort for prolonged periods of time.

3. A system according to claim 2 further including: a scuttle mounted on the top-side of said watertight body member permitting access thereto and emergency escape therefrom. 4. A system according to claim 3 further including:

emergency escape. 

1. In a system for deploying and permitting a submerged visual observation from a catamaran-like supporting vessel an improvement therefor is provided comprising: a watertight body member sized for containing an observer having at least one viewing port and means for remotely displacing said watertight body member from said catamaran-like supporting vessel including a first and a second rigid arm pivotally joined together, said first arm is pivotally connected to said watertight body member between its center of buoyancy and its center of mass to maintain said watertight body member in an upright position in and out of the water and said second arm is journaled on said catamaran-like vessel to prevent the development of destructive strains as said catamaran-like supporting vessel rolls in response to surface wave action.
 2. A system according to claim 1 in which said watertight body member is provided with a plurality of viewing ports circumfrentially disposed for allowing a 360* said observation in comfort for prolonged periods of time.
 3. A system according to claim 2 further including: a scuttle mounted on the top-side of said watertight body member permitting access thereto and emergency escape therefrom.
 4. A system according to claim 3 further including: a valve reaching through the wall of said watertight body member for flooding and pressure compensating same to ensure said emergency escape.
 5. A system according to claim 4 further including: a source of pressurized gas disposed in said watertight body member adapted to vent a volume of pressurized gas to the interior of said watertight body member to facilitate the opening of said scuttle and to provide life-sustaining gas for said observer as he ascends to the surface during said emergency escape. 